'An Immense Special Talent'

D.G. Myers and I met in person only once, in March 2012, when David came to Houston to see his oncologist. We had lunch in a Mexican restaurant and talked for hours, then I drove him to the hospital. He gave me the Library of America’s collection of Henry James’ writings on American and English authors, including his review of J.W. Cross’ 1885 biography of George Eliot. James writes of the novelist:

“Her daily stint of arduous reading and writing was of the largest. Her ability, as one may express it in the most general way, was astonishing, and it belonged to every season of her long and fruitful career. Her passion for study encountered no impediment, but was able to make everything feed and support it. The extent and variety of her knowledge is by itself the measure of a capacity which triumphed wherever it wished. Add to this an immense special talent which, as soon as it tries its wings, is found to be adequate to the highest, longest flights and brings back great material rewards.”

 

Shift the pronouns and James could be writing about David, except for the reference to Eliot’s “long” career. David died ten years ago today, on September 26, 2014, at age sixty-two. We met virtually when David started A Commonplace Blog in 2008 and remained in touch via email and telephone almost daily, except on shabbat (David was an orthodox Jew), until his death from metastatic prostate cancer.

 

We shared many bookish loves – the poetry of L.E. Sissman, Whittaker Chambers’ Witness, Michael Oakeshott’s philosophical essays, Ronald Knox’s Enthusiasm, J.V. Cunningham, Lolita, the novels of Peter De Vries, Janet Lewis, A.J. Liebling on boxing . . . I often wish David was around so I could hear his reaction to the Hamas atrocities, the writings of Gary Saul Morson, Boris Dralyuk’s translations of Isaac Babel, the poetry of A.M. Juster, the revival of anti-Semitism . . . David loved a good fight.      

 

We weren’t always in agreement. He loved sports and the literature of sports, especially baseball and football. As a kid I realized there was nothing more boring. He could write admiringly of Philip K. Dick, who never wrote an interesting sentence. I enjoy the Parker novels of Donald Westlake (dba Richard Stark) and David thought they were trash. His opinions never intimidated me; only that he was usually more articulate in expressing them than I was. David always insisted I was a critic, a charge I still deny. I don’t possess a fraction of his analytical skills but he was good at making you feel more intelligent than you truly are.

 

David loved quoting Yvor Winters: “Write little; do it well.” The literary blogosphere has never recovered from David’s death. It’s a poorer, less amusing, less well-written place.